Adventures of an Underwater Photographer

Details: Jumped on board Jarrods boat and headed out to Chimney Rock with Chris. Lots of Jellies in the water column, and blue devils down around the pinnacles. Some great structure at Chimney as always.

Details: While my strobe was away being fixed, I decided to try my hand at video which I may upload in the future. Most dives in April and May will be video with the occasional ambient light/torch light photo. Dive 479 is my first dive back with the camera.

Details: A fairly gloomy dive at Chimney Rock with John. A highlight was a big school of Trevally on descent. The weather changed from mercury-like glass condition to a chrystaline chop on the way down from Castle Rock. There were no shortage of photographic opportunities though. A seal casually demolished its catch in my company, and a Little Penguin popped up for air nearby. The Barwon Bluff looked amazing on approach as the sun glistened on the wind swept surface.

Details: A scary dive..repositioning the anchor caused me shortness of breath and a less than quality occy in place of my primary made me feel panicked with an inadequate delivery of air. Mixed with strong surge and 3metres vis this was a nightmare dive….but a good learning experience all the same.

Details: Near ideal conditons for diving chimney rock. The swell was flat and the visibility was the best i’ve seen it out here..the only problem was, i was feeling very seedy from a big night before. The conditions were too good not to dive though, so after messing around with stupid smartphone GPS’s we eventually found the site and headed down. Lots of jellies midwater on the way down, and we started exploring the gullies and overhangs. Lots of Rosy Perch kept us company and a whiteear buzzed around the zooanthids. A lone Port Jackson Shark was sitting on ledge and i turned around excitedly to point it out to Hyeonji. I only shortly after realised this PJ was the “guard on duty” to a cave FULL of Port Jackson Sharks!!! There were at least 30 PJ’s, criss-crossing each other as far as the eye could see into the darkened cave. I’d seen 7 PJ’s in a group before and that got me pretty excited, so 30+ was a wet dream. I’m not sure i nailed photos of the event, but some came out ok. I sat out the second dive and took photos of Albatross, and watched as a seal buzzed Phil and Hyeonji on their saftey stop. On surfacing they were overjoyed that the resident seven-gilled shark had given a good show. Chimney rock turns on the goods again!

Details: Some dives will stick in your mind for ever…this will be one of them. My first encounter with a broad-nosed seven gilled shark. Here’s what i posted to flickr about this dive after it happened:

“What an experience!!! I have dreamt of seeing a sevengill shark since i started diving, and i’m not sure i’ll have a better encounter than my first yesterday. I was sitting at about 20m, stalking a large school of bullseye that were sitting in a gully over a wall from me. Luckily i had the camera all ready to go when this shark gracefully swum through an archway, along the gully and continued past within a couple of metres of me. I was totally blind-sided from its vision and it continued through the gully and into the blue, totally unaware of my presence. It had an amazing vibe to it. It moved so gracefully and it almost gave off a happy vibe, without a trace of menace or fear about it. Perhaps it would have behaved differently if it was aware of my presence….this is why i feel i’ll never get an encounter like this again.. just nature doing nature’s thing.”

Details: I’d heard alot about Chimney rock and i was dying to dive it. Alan Beckhurst kindly past on the gps coords to me, so while the going was good, i headed out with the old man who was keen to do some fishing. The coords were spot on and it picked up on the sounder very easily. I dropped in to 20m and explored the bommies that made up chimney rock. Its a great site. Archways covered with zooanthids, sea fans on the walls and plenty of fish around. We left the run a bit late and it was getting dark so i kept the dive short and viwed to come back for a longer dive.